Dont Be Afraid of the Dark

Guy Pearce just doesn't do enough movies for my liking. It's not as though he's vanished, but he seems to maintain a fairly low profile every time he blows everyone away with a big, meaty part like L.A. Confidential or Memento. But he has a lot of great projects coming up (the most exciting of which has to be The Road), and he's added a very intriguing one to his slate: the remake of 1973's telepic Don't Be Afraid of the Dark.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Pearce and Bailee Madison have joined Katie Holmes in Troy Nixey's remake. It's a fairly loose adaptation of the 1973 original, which was centered around a couple, Sally and Alex, who inherited an old mansion from Sally's grandmother. Sally accidentally uncovers a hellish portal that allows a bunch of demons to escape and wreck bloody havoc. Naturally, no one believes her, and is convinced she's having a nervous breakdown thanks to all that home repair. Because it was the 1970s, it didn't even end well for Sally who just wanted a new fireplace ...

For those tired of seeing "remake" tacked onto everything, and for fans of the original, you'll be happy to know that the new Dark isn't so much a remake as a story "inspired by" those demonic creatures of old. It'll change up the family dynamic a bit, and have the focus be Madison, who plays a young girl who moves in with her father (Pearce) and his girlfriend (Holmes), and discovers they're sharing the house with demonic creatures. She tries to convince her father, a writer frustrated with his daughter's monster tales, but she does manage to convince his girlfriend. The script was written by Matthew Robbins and Nixey's mentor, Guillermo Del Toro, who will also be producing. With the tireless Del Toro overseeing the new and ghastly story, you can bet that it'll probably end on as dark of note as the original. The film begins production next month in Australia.